INDIAN WELLS — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday warned Republican Party activists who routinely denounce his centrist policies that the party will die unless it moves to the political middle.

“In movie terms, (the GOP) is dying at the box office,” Schwarzenegger said during the keynote dinner speech at the Republican Party’s twice-yearly convention. “We are not filling the seats.”

Citing declining registration in the Republican Party, the governor urged the party to allow the growing number of independents to vote in the upcoming presidential primary. It was a strange recommendation, as the party has already restricted its primary to registered Republicans and the deadline to change it has passed.

“The Democrats have said they welcome independents,” Schwarzenegger said. “Why wouldn’t we welcome them, too? The goal of any political party is to win elections, to become a majority and to advance its ideals.”

The governor received a mixed response at best from the audience ofroughly 400 people gathered in the ballroom of the swanky Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa. Some tables cheered and applauded loudly, but others were noticeably silent.

“What would you expect?” asked conservative party activist Jon Fleischman, author of the widely read FlashReport. “The governor came to the Republican Party to make a pitch to move to the left. That’s not a popular position among most Republicans.”

But Schwarzenegger is known for taking political risks, and he clearly sought to persuade at least some Republicans who feel the party has become wedded to ideology rather than to success at the ballot box.

“He got it right,” said former Orange County Assemblywoman Lynn Daucher. “He said what so many of us have been saying for years — but we’ve never had a Republican governor get up and say what is on the minds of many Republicans who are moderate.”

Schwarzenegger leaned heavily on the patron saint of conservatives, the late President Ronald Reagan, quoting from his 1967 “Big Tent” speech, where Reagan said that the party cannot become a “narrow sectarian party in which all must swear allegiance to prescribed commandments. Such a party can be highly disciplined, but it does not win elections. That kind of party soon disappears in a blaze of glorious defeat.”

Schwarzenegger has long had an uneasy relationship with conservative party activists who love his defeat of recalled Gov. Gray Davis and his fund-raising prowess, but remain highly dissatisfied with his moderate views.

They say his bipartisan policies such as his global warming bill and health care reform proposals amount to little more than wholesale concessions to Democrats that will result in tax hikes and excessive regulation.

They heavily criticized the governor’s budget and objected to his public badgering of state senators he labeled as obstructionist while they held out for weeks before agreeing to a spending plan. In a legislature controlled by Democrats, the two-thirds vote requirement provides Republicans with one of their few points of leverage, because the state can’t pass a budget without GOP support.

But the governor did not shy away from promoting his centrist platform in the 20-minute speech.

Polls show, Schwarzenegger said, that a majority of Republicans want comprehensive health care and support recent transportation bonds and the global warming bill he signed last year.

“If the party doesn’t address the needs of the people — the needs of Republicans themselves — the voters, registered Republicans included, will look elsewhere for their political affiliation,” he said.

Moderate Republicans question whether it is the governor or the activists who are out of step with rank-and-file Republicans who may not attend political conventions.

A recent Field Poll showed the governor with a 69 percent approval rating among Republicans. A Public Policy Institute survey put the figure at 75 percent.

“This is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s version of the ‘Big Tent’ speech,” said GOP consultant Patrick Dorinson. “Will it be tough to persuade some Republicans? Yes, but any movement needs leadership, and a lot of Republicans who don’t come to conventions believe the party needs to embrace the middle.”

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